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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25405849">Machtergreifung</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turandokht/pseuds/Turandokht'>Turandokht</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Dominion of the Sword -- A Bellamione Tale [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, BAMF Bellatrix Black Lestrange, BAMF Narcissa Black Malfoy, Black Family Drama (Harry Potter), Black Family-centric (Harry Potter), Boats, Boats and Ships, Combat, Death, Discord: Bellamione Coven, Discord: Bellamione Cult, Escape, Evil Voldemort (Harry Potter), F/F, Foreshadowing, Good Slytherins, Harry Potter Dies, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, Intrigue, Law, Original Character(s), POV Andromeda Black Tonks, POV Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Politics, Prequel, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Tea, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Violence, War</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:09:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,412</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25405849</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turandokht/pseuds/Turandokht</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A prequel to "There Will Be Love", my long-form Bellamione story; the story of the escape of Dumbledore's Army from Britain and the seizure of power by Lord Voldemort. Attraction between Bellatrix and Hermione is only implied in this particular story.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Andromeda Black Tonks &amp; Nymphadora Tonks, Hermione Granger &amp; Andromeda Black Tonks, Hermione Granger &amp; Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Narcissa Black Malfoy &amp; Andromeda Black Tonks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Dominion of the Sword -- A Bellamione Tale [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1840054</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>115</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Humber</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suang/gifts">Suang</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arrogant_Clown/gifts">Arrogant_Clown</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xilizhra/gifts">Xilizhra</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/error_cascade/gifts">error_cascade</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wardown/gifts">Wardown</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/warthesuperior/gifts">warthesuperior</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>15 August, 1998.</p><p>Andromeda Black Tonks sat inside <em>The Landings Hotel &amp; Restaurant</em> across from the New Clee station in Grimsby and drizzled more milk into her tea, watching the telly with a blank, taut, drawn expression. Her grandson was distracted by his food, the better for it, and like most of the adults dining there that morning, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from BBC One.</p><p>“We have very little information on the situation at this time. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Condon is not available for interview, but his press secretary released the following statement: ‘The Prime Minister’s residence was subjected to a sophisticated terrorist attack at around 3 AM this morning. In the immediate aftermath of this incident, as units were responding, further attacks occurred at the Ministry of Defence and Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty is safe and has been moved to a safe, undisclosed location. The Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, is currently chairing a meeting of COBRA to coordinate the response to the attack. The Metropolitan Police have no other information at this time and will enforce provisions of a State of Emergency on the London metropolitan area until further information is forthcoming from the Government.”</p><p>They flashed to another announcer. “I am reporting on a message just released by the Downing Street Press Secretary, Mr. Alastair Campbell. He has informed the media that ‘The Civil Defence Act of 1948 and the Emergency Powers Act of 1964 have been declared in full effect throughout the United Kingdom. People should remain in their homes voluntarily until further notice and Police and other Authorities are being notified to enforce curfew provisions until the situation is under control.’”</p><p>Andromeda heard the muttering, she saw the nervous, fearful expressions of the people around her.</p><p>“Well, it’s started, Andy,” her dining partner across the table said, modestly, but matter-of-factly. His presence still made Andy’s heart ache; of course it did. He was her husband’s brother, and though they weren’t very alike—Craig Tonks had gone into the Services young, worked his way up to officer rank, and served in the SBS, which left him a far cry from the paunch her husband had developed before his death and that she had been trying to get him to lose—they were still too similar.</p><p>Of course, he was a godsend to have present for this living nightmare. There was his grand-nephew, distracted by his grand-uncle, strapped in a muggle baby-carrier. They both wouldn’t be there without her brother-in-law; he had arranged the cars, the false IDs, the guns. He was the one who had made sure the message got to the survivors from Hogwarts with the meticulous instructions on where to go, exactly when, to be safe.</p><p>He was the one who had given her the chronometer on her wrist which showed they were still ten minutes short from the rendezvous. “Are we going to have enough time, Craig?” She spoke urgently, putting an arm around her grandson.</p><p>“...mum? Da?” Teddy asked from his seat. Andy glanced to her grandson and pursed her lips for a moment; she was thankful he was too young to understand.</p><p>“We will,” Craig Tonks finally interjected. “The local Authorities will lock down Grimsby City Centre first, and then the railway and bus stations, and then the ports. The train should clear Grimsby before they’ve even sorted out the State of Emergency there. These things take time.”</p><p>“I trust you,” Andy flashed her smile, and drank her tea, and the chronometer ticked. She remembered one of the old wartime films that Ted had liked showing her, from 1940: <em>The Night Train to Munich</em>. He would have loved being in the middle of this wild skullduggery. But the Death Eaters had already tortured him to death, and that would be the fate of all of them if her and Craig couldn’t make this work.</p><p>Craig got up and went to pay, casing the exit in the process. Then he turned. “Come on, Andy, we’re running late.” Both Andromeda and Nymphadora had had children young enough that Teddy might as well be Andromeda’s son. She was only forty-three. What they were about to do held no particular fear for her; the weather was good and, Wizard or not, she had been raised in England, nobody minded the sea.</p><p>Andromeda got up with Teddy and strapped him to her, carrying him rather than using a stroller; Craig had insisted on this. She had a wand, and under her long coat, which got a few looks but not many (it was a rather cool day for summer, with the fog coming in off the sea) and made her feel a little like she was still wearing wizarding robes, she carried two pistols. Craig had arranged them; they were M1895 Nagant revolvers, made in Russia and chosen for their unique design and ready availability on the black market. Craig had explained the details of how they worked to her, but it had gone over her head, really; the key thing was that with the suppressors attached to them they could fire seven rounds each, with a simple pull of the trigger. The action would make more noise from the click of the metal than the gunshot itself. He had drilled with her like that. They both carried them. In the event of any trouble, they could deal with it without resorting to magic and revealing to any Snatchers that might be lurking in Grimsby that something big was up. The weight of the gunmetal in her coat was the most chilling part of it all.</p><p>Outside, there was a fence separating them from the station; they were literally on the wrong side of the tracks. The Class 153 was drifting down to a stop; a second unit had been added because of the large number aboard. It came to a stop, and was there was the sound of people disembarking for a while, as Andromeda and Craig waited in a small copse of trees just west of the Hotel. As the Class 153s began to accelerate eastbound toward the final stop on the line, Craig went to work with a bolt cutter he had placed there the night before. Within a minute, a wide passage in the fence was open.</p><p>Andromeda handed off Teddy to him and drew one of her revolvers. She would be the one to make contact, because nobody in the Wizarding World would recognise Craig. Gingerly, she stepped through the cut fence, which had already attracted the attention…</p><p>Of her sister.</p><p>In consternation, Narcissa Black Malfoy had been looking around the platform, and had quietly levelled her wand at the fence as it was opened. She had brought it to the ready as a figure stepped through, and now stood ready from across the tracks to blast—her own sister, who held a muggle gun in hand.</p><p>Andromeda was struck for a moment with absolute terror. If Narcissa was there… <em>They have found us out.</em></p><p>But then her daughter stepped up to her sister’s side, and she staggered under the emotional blow of realising that somehow, somewhere, somewhen, in the madness she did not yet know the story to, her sister must have defected. It was either that or the Imperious Curse, and in that case, it was a hopeless situation anyway. She gestured with her revolver in a universal gesture, and it was soon clear that was not the case, as gaggle after gaggle of schoolchildren hastily clambered off the side of the platform, dashed across the tracks, and cut through the fence into the copse of trees.</p><p>Professor Flitwick, Rolanda Hooch, that was it for Hogwarts instructors. Molly Weasley, of course she was there, and a few of the older brothers; there was Narcissa, her daughter, and even Draco. Her nephew… Had somehow been saved from the Dark Lord. But of Harry Potter there was nothing, even as, looking exhausted and bedraggled, both with wounds that even now were so severe that all the magic in the world had not fully healed them yet, were Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, with Ginny Weasley helping her friend.</p><p>They finished passing through, and Narcissa stopped for a moment, and looked at Andy. “I didn’t realise it was you,” she said, the first words she had spoken to her sister in more than two decades.</p><p>“I didn’t realise it was you either,” Andromeda answered, trying to use cold Necessity to crush the emotional groundswell inside of her. They didn’t have the time. “But I am thankful,” she added, sparing the time for those words. Then she turned to her daughter. “Dora,” she began, and of course her daughter normally didn’t quite like it, preferring Tonks to the name Andromeda had given her. But this time, she looked at her mother with a dull acquiescence that told Andromeda everything she needed to know. Instead of asking the question, she just quickly let Dora embrace her son. “I’m sorry,” she whispered instead, and then they both started off, to a hasty wave from Narcissa, who badly wanted to be moving again.</p><p>They hastened down below a vehicle flyover and along Marsden Road toward the fishing port. By this time, they could hear the sirens in Grimsby and Cleethorpes, sounding the discordant notes of countless emergency vehicles as the local Police deployed to enforce the provisions of the Emergency Powers Act of 1964. Ahead of them was the fishing pier, and certainly the large group of people would be noticed without magic, but the risk of magical energy being detected was greater than the risk of complications with the authorities, which Craig had already gone to great lengths with his connections to avoid.</p><p>At the end, the boat Captain watched stiffly at the large group of children approaching. Andromeda stuffed her pistol back into her coat at a gesture from her brother-in-law; no need to scare the crew. Unless it was necessary.</p><p>“So what’s the plan,” Narcissa muttered to her sister, coming up.</p><p>“The Muggles take us to the port of Cuxhaven in Germany by pretending to fish across the Dogger Bank first,” Andromeda explained.</p><p>“In that boat? It’s a hundred feet long I think, and we’re going to be putting a hundred wizards and witches on it,” Narcissa twisted her lips.</p><p>“They’ll have to go down into the fish holds, but it will work, and we want them there anyway, in case we’re subjected to an overflight by the military or security services,” Andromeda explained. “Craig is a professional in these matters—in the muggle armed forces.”</p><p>“<em>Your muggle brother-in-law.</em>”</p><p>“Yes, Cissy, I have one of those. Does it matter right now?”</p><p>“No,” Narcissa answered with a ghost of a whisper.</p><p>Craig was speaking to the boat captain and his crew, in a quick, urgent set of whispers as the passengers were filing on. It was clear that the conversation was escalating, not in a good direction. As the children and the other professors and adults went aboard, both sisters, walking together without another word, by mutual consensus, walked up, Tonks following them.</p><p>“Look,” the Captain was muttering. “I don’t understand what this is about anyway. I thought… Damn it, I want some money like any man, but there was an attempt against Her Majesty. I am not so stupid as to not figure this out, and I don’t know what the hell you’re doing with all these kids.”</p><p>“This is a sanctioned operation,” Craig was repeating, flashing his service badge. “I need to have you follow the plan, even if you don’t trust it. It’s very urgent in the circumstances, and the operation is straightforward. There’s nothing even illegal about it.”</p><p>“That’s not true, we’re over-capacity on our rated passengers with this many, we won’t have enough life preservers!” The Captain exclaimed, his voice rising.</p><p>Craig and Andromeda exchanged a glance. She was terrified now and with good reason, because they absolutely needed this to work and they needed to clear the harbour locks before ship departures were cancelled; nothing yet had indicated anyone had thought to tell trawlers not to sail for their regular departures, which this was, but it would surely come soon. The fog coming off the Humber gave them some cover, but not much.</p><p>“Madame Tonks,” he said formally, “if you could deal with this, please?” He turned away to face the pier-head. The boat captain rolled his eyes, since of course with a woman carrying a baby stepping up he expected some kind of emotional appeal that he did not intend to agree with.</p><p>“Cissy?” Andy called to her sister. “I’d appreciate your support.”</p><p>This time, there was a smooth confidence in her voice that Narcissa knew exactly what to do. “Of course, Andy.”</p><p>“Look here, jus’ because you’re women with a baby doesn’t mean…”</p><p>The two Black sisters immediately hit the Captain and his Mate with the Imperious Curse. Laws and Azkaban sentences didn’t really seem to matter much anymore, when Voldemort had just seized power in Britain.</p><p>No, the only thing that made Andromeda’s heart quail—she was a Slytherin and knew the Unspeakables if they were needed—was that her daughter joined in. There was a hard look in Nymphadora’s eyes, now.</p><p>An hour later, standing out from the Humber, laden with young wizards and witches stuffed into the stinking, reeking fish-holds, Narcissa and Andy were sharing a brew-up on the bridge, while Craig Tonks manned the wheel himself, not trusting the Imperious’d crew to navigate properly.</p><p>“Why wasn’t it sooner?” Narcissa asked, plainly. “That was far closer than I liked, the coup d’etat almost collapsed your plan.”</p><p>“The coup d’etat also distracted all of Voldemort’s forces, so it was the only time that we could get away with it without discovery at all. I should have just planned on using the Imperious Curse on the crew all along, but I wanted to think that I could…” Andy bit her lip, “That I could buy them with gold instead so I wouldn’t have to, but…”</p><p>Narcissa laughed bitterly. “I’m afraid, Andy, this is no longer a world in which half-measures will work.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>-- The M1895 Nagant is unique as the only silenced revolver. It is also one of the few handguns which can be fired multiple times while silenced, with just the press of the trigger, and no need to work the action; this is because it is a double-action revolver, but has a unique camming action which, as a chamber is cycled, cams it forward into a firm locking contact with the barrel, to increase the firing pressure of the gun and increase the velocity. The NKVD discovered this allowed for the fitting of a silencer with very high effectiveness; the gun makes absolutely no noise whatsoever from the firing of a bullet when silenced, and so only the click of the gun, as if it was dry-fired, can be heard. Each cylinder has seven rounds; Craig Tonks' assumption was that if they needed more than twenty-eight bullets between them, there would be no further harm in using magic.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. No Library Like To The Cutlers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>No Library Like To The Cutlers</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Whitehall was changing rapidly, in accordance with the wishes of its masters. Nobody was permitted to go in or out, except when beginning and ending their shifts. This was being presented to the public as a security measure due to the risk of continued terrorist attack. Of course, the new masters could come and go as they pleased, but they were not elected to sit in Westminster. They answered to a higher power, a new one, or rather a very old one, but no before spoken of in these halls—magic, though magic wielded for war like this, one might say, was not at all different from an earlier breed of Cutler who had used the plainer matter of the sword for this kind of talking.</p><p>Lord Voldemort now sat in the Ministry of Magic building; he would not defame himself with muggle architecture until he was able to rule and control it utterly, from a seat of power elevated enough to give him the respect he was owed. Bellatrix Lestrange had been at his side when they had taken London, and the last three days had been the most intense of her life. She had craved every second of it, for it seemed, after fourteen years in Azkaban, that seconds in the midst of a coup d’etat lasted forever, and they were filled with sound and violence, colour, passion, pride, anger, lust, need, even fear was healthy in the measured doses with which Victory supplied it. After fourteen years with the Dementors, the emotions, the feelings, the haste of events, it all came together like a drug.</p><p>There had been very few times in the years since she escaped Azkaban that she had felt so good. The night her Lord triumphed at Hogwarts had been one of them. The night she had tortured the Mudblood—Hermione Granger, it had been unique enough to bother remembering her name (though she had certainly made herself known at Hogwarts as well)--was another of them. The memory of it brought a keen shiver to her. The intensity of the coup d’etat had already faded, and Bellatrix could admit to herself that she would want another rush. The hideous screams of the Dementors, the older screams than that; they could be kept well at bay when every single was packed with experiences like a coup. But for the moment, she would make due with the fresh members of it, and the older, finely-aged ones of that night in the Malfoy Manor.</p><p>Lord Voldemort, however, did not always appreciate his subordinates enjoying themselves excessively. One learned to try and avoid his moods, and to be aware that there were some lines not to be crossed. But occasionally, Bellatrix thought the secret thought that some of what he did was, in fact, rather petty. Like what she had been told minutes before. “Bellatrix, you will chair COBRA on my behest. Leave immediately, and keep the muggles under control until the time is right to be rid of them.”</p><p>And that was that. She had taken a portkey now set up to deliver them directly into Whitehall, to be received by the lower-ranking wizards holding the place down, and the several Death Eaters waiting for her. Voldemort had placed his most trusted Lieutenant in the position of Vizier, executing his wishes for him and overseeing the government they had twisted into place. But it felt like a demotion, and of course, she was holding it, and it was only necessary, because of the mistakes of others.</p><p>The coup d’etat had not gone as planned, and Lord Voldemort had already punished those he held responsible. There had been real resistance, and contingency plans, on the part of the muggles. The arrogance of the ministry in assuming the Prime Minister would not arrange these things was, in retrospect, stunning. Of course, the contingency plans wildly underestimated the true power of magic, executed by muggles unwilling and unable to see it for what it was, who were frequently performing tasks with no idea of the cause that underpinned those tasks. They had been hopeless.</p><p>They had also gotten Prince Charles and his sons, and part of the Air Force and Navy, clear away from Britain, causing a serious problem for the new government and Voldemort’s plans. The Queen had died, but in the process, avoided capture. Once upon a time the Wizarding world had treated royalty with the same reverence as the muggle population, but of course the Death Eaters held no particular care for the Muggle-in-Chief. Nonetheless, even Bellatrix acknowledged she had been a brave sort, and her husband too, who by Yaxley’s account had picked up the rifle of one of his fallen guards, and gone down shooting.</p><p>The lies already constrained Bellatrix’s action; the longer they hid the death of the Queen from the muggle population the better, but they had to somehow account for Charles. The Death Eaters had no assets in place to intercept ships at sea, especially submarines, and they did not have control over the Ministries of all the Commonwealth countries. Some kind of story would have to satisfy the muggle world until the time was right, and as she arrived at COBRA, the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms, a plan began to form. That Blair was also dead—and he had certainly been a popular Prime Minister by muggle accounts—and the timing of the attacks, together gave her the thread from which to tell a story.</p><p>She stepped into the room. The Cabinet Ministers themselves were under the Imperious Curse; some of the others were for the moment bribed or intimidated. Now they faced the right hand of their Master, though they didn’t know her as such; but even a John Prescott shackled under the power of the Imperious Curse could see Bellatrix Lestrange in her wild black dress and dragonskin corset as someone who was supremely dangerous. The tiny woman did not need size or an imposing appearance; the way she carried her beauty as a weapon of war spoke the volumes her slight figure did not.</p><p>Of course, it was easy enough to tell those who had been subjected to the Imperious Curse versus those who had not. They remained supine and submissive to the commands, engaging as they were told, and did not show any fear they felt; and they were probably incapable of fear. The others, like the briefing officer… Not so much. He approached her first, in the room with the crisp curved desk, the modern executive chairs, the televisions and projectors on every wall, the secured communications devices—all so much garbage to a witch, but the backdrop for this important task she had been given by her Lord, nonetheless.</p><p>“Lady Lestrange, I understand?”</p><p>“That’s so,” Bellatrix said with curt boredom, and glanced to the Carrows across from her. Alecto studiously avoided looking directly at her. Their breakup hadn’t been pleasant, and Bellatrix doubted anyhow that Alecto’s heart had ever been in it. But even if it had been, Bellatrix remembered her abandonment of their cause, her pleading that got her out of Azkaban. The day one of them went to freedom, and one went to fourteen years in a place worse than Hell. Her. <em>Bitch. </em>Bellatrix still wasn’t ready to forgive that.</p><p>“Madame Lestrange, we understand you will be in charge of coordinating our duties?”</p><p>“Also correct.” Bellatrix, in a bored display of magic, made the tea and milk carafes float over to her. “So get on with it.”</p><p>“Of course. Madame, we are in control of all military bases in the country, as well as British Forces Gibraltar and RAF Akrotiri. Three of our attack submarines, eight surface warships, and HMS Illustrious are not responding to orders. British Army Training Unit Suffield and forces in Brunei are already clearly in communication with the Commonwealth governments…”</p><p>Bellatrix looked at the map, frowning.</p><p>“They still have troops overseas?” Amycus asked with a look of consternation as well.</p><p>“Yes, of course they do,” the Black scion and estranged wife of Rodolphus Lestrange waved a hand with frustration. “Old Empires never quite die.”</p><p>There was a brief look of bemusement from the muggle briefing officer. <em>The comment pleased him, </em>Bellatrix mused. “At any rate, it seems like Prince Charles will be able to go to one of the Dominions to oppose us, and will try to warn the world about what has happened. I have a plan. <em>Minister </em>Prescott,” she called down the table, and the new Prime Minister turned to face her. “Madame Lestrange?” He asked with a passive solicitousness enforced by the curse.</p><p>“Doesn’t it sound reasonable,” she began, kicking her legs back and bringing up the tea, “that we let the world know that Prince Charles attempted a coup d’etat against the elected government? I see little other way to discredit him or keep the situation under control, and we can say it was in response to a planned referendum on the monarchy, over the Princess Diana scandal.”</p><p>She was dealing with an old Labourite politician on the left wing. They generally hid it well, but there were at least some Republican sympathies which could be tapped. Bellatrix could clearly see the interest around the table at what she had just proposed, like it was a natural course of events.</p><p>“Prince Charles has meddled in the affairs of the Government,” Prescott admitted after a moment. “And I’ve got a bit of a Republican in me. Less than Margaret.” His eyes darted in a fish-like manner across the table to another of Voldemort’s new slaves, Margaret Beckett, the Leader of the House of Commons.</p><p>“Will you make the announcement that a referendum was planned?” Bellatrix looked between the two Labour leaders in a mix of distaste and bemusement. She was no Republican, and given a choice between a Muggle President and a Muggle King she’d choose the King every time as a matter of course; it was a sacred part of the old England of Magic to which she belonged, even if the Kings had chosen to abandon that long ago, and now paid the price for it. But the decision had already been made, and it was not a Muggle Republic that would come next; it was Lord Voldemort’s domain, and whether King or Emperor, he would be whatever he pleased.</p><p>“Yes, we will,” he nodded, and turned to Margaret. “In the unusual circumstances…”</p><p>“I will take point in announcing it,” she agreed. Perhaps, somewhere inside, she wanted to achieve this policy victory even in the circumstances. So she looked to Bellatrix. “Madame Lestrange, will you let us hold the vote?”</p><p>“Not immediately, but perhaps within as little as a year,” Bellatrix smiled smoothly, before a sidelong glare to the Carrows to discourage them from interrupting.</p><p>The looks of relief, versus those of dismay, showed readily how the issue cut down the middle of the Labour Party.</p><p>Prescott dared to lean closer to her. “How will we keep order until then?”</p><p>After a brief sneer that sent him into retreat, Bellatrix couldn’t help but cackle. “Oh, I think I have someone in mind for that job. They didn’t <em>all </em>escape or die.” The laughter spread a moment of unease around the table.</p><p>“Internal security measures?” Bellatrix sharply changed the subject as she stopped laughing, and poured herself another cuppa from the carafe, now floating over the table thanks to her spell, leaving the muggles much too uncomfortable to think to reach for it.</p><p>Jack Straw as the Home Secretary had been busy creating the instruments of power which made this kind of oppression possible. Now he was directed to use them against himself, his own cause, but the choice had been taken from him. “Compliance has been high. A complication remains that there has been an outpouring of sympathy for Her Majesty.” He didn’t speak, one or another, on the plan just discussed, but he clearly provided information with bearing on it. “There would be much more doubt otherwise. We have locked down all Cities in the United Kingdom, and the Crown Dependencies are cooperating with the orders for the moment. Due to the curfew a temporary suspension of rail, bus, ferry and aeroplane travel remains in effect and the Motorways have been closed. Limited emergency travel is allowed.”</p><p>“No doubt,” Bellatrix’s bemusement was her only weapon against the boredom. “By private persons? ...Why are we allowing emergency travel?”</p><p>“We need to let people get to medical appointments and other emergency services.”</p><p>Bellatrix grimaced and thought about it for a moment. Muggles could not take care of themselves at home, they went to hospitals, to surgeries, to clinics. They needed food, and they couldn't send their House Elves to get any; they didn’t have them. It was one thing to just lock the country down and another to look practically at the fact muggles would start dying of being unable to get to the hospital—which was a little funny—but then their relatives would get upset. Dissent would build before the situation was in control. She put her cup down and stared hard at Straw. “Can you control the situation despite emergency travel authorisations?”</p><p>“Of course, Madame Lestrange. This was always part of contingency planning for any kind of national emergency,” he answered levelly, and under the Imperious curse, she thought it true.</p><p>“I want to read the plans, but I will permit your implementation,” she answered after a moment. “Any other particular incidents?”</p><p>“There have been several fishing trawlers which left different ports in Britain as the curfew began. We are following their whereabouts to confirm that their intentions were innocent—most were beginning extended duration commercial fishing runs—but allowing them to complete their trips is important for economic purposes, the same for the North Sea Oil Rigs and support vessels for them, and incoming deep-water freighters. Do I have your permission to approve these variances on a case-by-case basis?”</p><p>“Pay close attention to any kind of unusual activity, but you may,” Bellatrix agreed. Her mind, then, flashed to the mental image of Hermione Granger, first helpless at the Malfoy Manor, a delectable helplessness shot through the girl below her, and second, fiercely fighting at McGonagall’s side until the old witch forced her away. A large number of Witches and Wizards in Britain were still unaccounted for; she was one of them.</p><p>She hefted herself to her feet with a spring in her step. “That will be all! Prepare the documents and briefings for what I have directed and keep me appraised. I will be establishing offices here in some of the spare briefing rooms, for security purposes.” Perhaps, the muggles would be the source of their own damnation, and Bellatrix found herself hoping this assignment might be vaguely interesting after all, or at least less mind-numbing than she had feared. “Amycus, Alecto, if you would…?”</p><p>The two trailed her out, as she headed down the hall to a room still being cleared for her, once another of the classified briefing rooms. “You don’t like my plan,” she turned back with her eyes sharp, bemused, threatening—all at once.</p><p>“How will you keep the muggles under control without the Monarchy?” Amycus asked.</p><p>“Once Our Lord is in power, it won’t matter. Before then?” Bellatrix laughed. “Actually, we have one of them, and we will make do our bidding, without even the Imperious Curse. I will show you tomorrow.” She spun on heel, and all around, the muggles did their bidding, for they had no power which could match a Witch in her prime. Soon, Delphini would be brought down from Berwick-upon-Tweed, and she would rule at Voldemort’s side; he would never have a wife, but a mistress, a Regent…</p><p>She was finally beginning to think her fourteen years of Hell had been worthwhile. If she could use the muggle security apparatus to deliver escapees from Dumbledore’s Army and the Order of the Phoenix to her Lord, so much the better, even; though a part of her revolted at the idea, unwilling to use muggles to capture wizards—yes, even the mudblood.</p><p>Even a mudblood, after all, had magic in them; undeserved magic, but magic nonetheless, and it felt like letting a sacred flag into the hands of the unworthy.</p><p>But if she were to secure her Lord’s domains, she would now have to use every tool at her disposal, and by his whim and whimsy, the task was her’s. With a laugh of unrestrained intensity, Bellatrix felt a thrill at the challenge, and resolved that she would never fail again. If her Lord wished to play a joke on her and make her the one responsible for the muggle government, well – she would run a tight ship, indeed. And the thought of how her plan could come together, of the prisoner waiting for her, made the grin turn truly savage, indeed. And if it came to it and the muggles tried to foil her control? Well, she had the wand, and they did not. And that, they would learn, was the only authority which mattered now.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Doggerbank</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Doggerbank</b>
</p><p> </p><p>They were running steady, listening to the radio report on the steady stream of lies out of London. Thanks to EU rules, they had run until they were in the German Economic Exclusion Zone, to remove the risk of fishery patrol vessels aligned from the new government quickly bringing them a lot of trouble. Then they had put their nets down, and waited for night.</p><p>A large amount of food had been taken aboard, but it was inadequate for everyone; they chose to make one big meal right then rather than wait. They had managed Bangers and Mash made with Lincolnshire sausage, pease pudding, stottie cakes, and Cauliflower cheese, in sufficient quantity to mostly guarantee everyone what they wanted. Andy had done the cooking herself, which had shocked her sister, who in the end quietly started to a help a little as Andy pitted a combination of muggle cooking talent she’d picked up over her years living with Ted with the heavily magical infused cooking she had been taught by her mother on the off chance she was ever somewhere without House Elves (looking unprepared was a greater sin than doing work, for a Pretty Pureblood Princess) – and in that, at least, Narcissa was able to contribute.</p><p>And Nymphadora. Bringing them a large carafe of freshly brewed tea (there was at least plenty of tea, and plenty of milk), she’d sat it down on the counter to keep them all going, and joined in alongside her mother chopping and mixing. Both her and Narcissa had clearly had to work closely together over the past several months to keep the survivors of the Battle of Hogwarts safe, but Andy didn’t know what kind of tensions existed between them, or exactly what they had seen and done.</p><p>However, her happy, quirky, playful, funny Hufflepuff of a daughter had just casually used the Imperious Curse without blinking on multiple muggles to help them secure the ship, without being asked, or prodded. Oh, sure, the changes had started years ago during the war; but she had reestablished a certain kind of confidence after her marriage. Now that restored sense of self was gone, and anyway, it was not just melancholy in her daughter’s moods, but now it also had a harder edge, like moonlight carved out of steel.</p><p><em>At least she’s alive. </em>Andy’s thoughts flickered in a dark direction for a moment. Satisfied with the food as it came out, she stepped closer to Nymphadora as they finished preparing their food, quickly making a cup of tea and pressing it into her daughter’s hand. “You should drink some of your own handiwork. How are you holding up, Dora?”</p><p>“Like shit, mum.” Tonks answered with a tightly controlled expression and an equally tightly-wound body when Andy gave her daughter a quick hug. “No time for it, though.”</p><p>“If you…”</p><p>“No time for it,” her daughter repeated with an edge in her voice.</p><p>Andy knew to drop the subject.</p><p>Tonks drank from her tea cup and turned to her mother, not upset, but distant. “Molly sent me up to help with the food earlier. Everyone is very hungry. She’s been applying potions to help with the seasickness and eliminate the smell, that’s why she didn’t come up to talk.”</p><p>“We’ll take it down now,” her mother smiled. “It will be so nice to see them fed, won’t it?” No condemnation, no ‘all you alright’, that wasn’t how you talked to Tonks. Focus on the positive, but not about her or her situation, about others. Engage her compassion.</p><p>There was a flicker from Tonks, a slight smile and a nod. “Yes.” They quickly gathered up the food, in tubs and stacks of paper plates and plastic cutlery, and went below to the holds. They had to be accessed through undogged heavy metal hatches, since they were normally loaded with fish from above. The maintenance lights were on, and it was dangerous to be running at sea with those hatches undogged, but the refugees needed fresh air, so the risk was taken. The kinds of threats they faced could end a fishing trawler too quickly for it to matter, anyway.</p><p>Molly Weasley was there, streaked with dirt and grime but with her wand busy. She brightened, on seeing Andromeda, though it was clear that Narcissa and Molly, despite having had to work together closely for several months, were still rather chilly to each other. “Dromeda!”</p><p>“Molly,” Andromeda managed a smile. “We’ve made everything we can. The nets are down, so for a second meal before Cuxhaven, we can try to use magic to fry up fish, but at least for now, we’ve got this.”</p><p>“I’ve got the seasickness under control, so it’s just in time,” she answered, though there was sadness in her eyes. Uncertainty, to be sure. Perhaps Arthur would escape separately; perhaps he was already dead, and she would never know exactly what happened.</p><p>“Good,” Andy nodded, and the three older women mustered themselves to dole out the food to grateful hands while a worried mother observed, out of the corner of her eye, how her daughter stepped over to the small knot around Hermione and Ron.</p><p>“Hey, how are you two holding up?” Tonks asked them.</p><p>Hermione stirred, and leaned up against Ron’s shoulder. “Still alive, thanks.” There was a hoarse, raw anguish in her voice, as much over Harry’s death as over her feelings of failure at Voldemort’s triumph.</p><p>“Was a little worried about that, when we were dragging you from place to place on a stretcher,” Tonks admitted. “...Ron?”</p><p>“It’s nothing, everything really bad has healed,” he muttered. “And we’re just… Here, while Voldemort finishes conquering England and I don’t know where dad is. So, you know, a lot of bloody rotters while the whole country is in for it.”</p><p>“We’ll find a way to keep fighting,” Hermione muttered under her breath. “You know that.”</p><p>“Oh, I know it! I saw what he did to Harry. I don’t need more.” The raw anguish in his voice made Nymphadora flinch.</p><p>Andromeda steered over to them to bring food. Ginny was closer to her brother, trying to shake off a hundred yard stare with a forced smile. “Oh thank you, Tonks family cooking, that will be lovely,” she said vocally to distract her brother and Hermione from their shared funk. Food was quickly distributed to all of them, and then Andromeda left them in peace again, or tried to, rather.</p><p>“Oh yes, the food will be lovely, though it feels very odd to be eating in a graveyard,” Luna remarked calmly as she took her own, from Hermione’s other side.</p><p>“...Eating in a graveyard?”</p><p>“Oh yes, we’re eating in a graveyard,” Luna answered, “or I suppose above one, rather. I don’t think they will mind, precisely, and we won’t be the first, either, but… Oh, I suppose we’ve left the graveyard. How fast does this boat move, Misses Tonks?”</p><p>“Fast enough to leave graveyards promptly,” Andromeda answered, wondering, to some extent, just what exactly Luna had meant by it all; but she knew the reputation of the Lovegoods, and suspected it was more significant than an idle fancy.</p><p>“Well, that’s certainly true,” Luna agreed.</p><p>Luna seemed as ethereal as ever. She was grimy, though, they all were. It was evident how far all of them had been worn down.</p><p>“Come on, Luna. We’ll talk for a moment.” Andromeda took her hand and led the girl up-deck with her food. Luna followed obligingly, but seemed confused as she reached the bridge. “I don’t really understand the special treatment…”</p><p>“This is my brother in law, Craig.”</p><p>“Why hello, Craig... Err, Mister Tonks,” Luna waved, and went back to her food. “What was it like to be a soldier?”</p><p>“Lots of waiting, mostly,” Craig Tonks answered from the wheel. He knew nothing about the background of Luna Lovegood, of course, but his answer would have been the same regardless.</p><p>“It’s not special treatment, I just wanted you to repeat your comment.”</p><p>“...Which one?”</p><p>“About the graveyard we just passed over.”</p><p>Now, Craig turned slowly and significantly from the wheel, and looked at Luna. Looked at her long and hard, and took in that particularly ethereal quality to her.</p><p>“Well, we did,” Luna repeated. “Do you know something about it, Mister Tonks?”</p><p>“SMS <em>Blucher</em>, maybe. We’re over the Dogger Bank. She was a German Armoured Cruiser in 1915, and at least seven hundred and fifty men went down with her.”</p><p>“That would do it,” Luna acknowledged, then looked up with guileless blue eyes. “Will more ships sink like that, soon?”</p><p>Craig turned to look ahead, again, tired, exhausted, even, from insisting to keep the helm. “That might be, if the world tries to stop Voldemort.”</p><p>“Well, we didn’t stop him, so someone will have to,” Luna responded with a shrug, and finishing her food, looked thoughtful at Andromeda’s brother in law. “You need a break. Let me hold the wheel?”</p><p>The SBS man chuckled. “It will be more than you expect, lass,” he observed, but let her take it for a moment—Luna walked over, grabbed the wheel, and …</p><p>Held the ship on a perfectly straight course, occasionally glancing with an almost secretive look at the compass to check her bearing. She might as well have been a veteran helmswoman.</p><p>Craig stepped over to his sister-in-law and whispered softly, “she’s a bit odder than everything and everyone else in your magical world, Andy.”</p><p>“Don’t worry… It’s not just you, Craig.”</p><p>“More ships will sink like that,” Luna remarked, apropos of nothing.</p><p>Both the adults turned to look at her sharply, and then decided it was best not to answer.</p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>They brought the nets up only haphazardly, before dashing toward the eastern shore of the North Sea. In doing so, they lost most of the catch, but the catch had only been a ruse, anyway. With children filling the holds, they had nowhere to keep most of it, so most of the fish were returned to the sea, and they kept only enough to have a proper grill-up of the fish they had claimed on the fantail, so that they could feed the children a second meal before their arrival in Cuxhaven.</p><p>Nymphadora was helping fry up the fish in the night when she saw her mother waving to her urgently from the bridge rail. It was the first sign of something going wrong on the trip, and it brought irons into her soul. <em>Of course we shouldn’t have expected to escape Voldemort so easily. </em>The now-veteran Auror made haste up to where her uncle and mother were. Her uncle, the closest she’d get to ever seeing her beloved father again.</p><p>Months of hiding from Voldemort for the sake of her life and the lives of the survivors of the Battle of Hogwarts had certainly numbed her to the reality that Remus was dead. She had already tried to process her father’s death before that. But now all the men in her life were gone, except for her uncle. And she felt too distant—felt that the brave man might well be dead by the end of this little cruise—to reach out and hug him as she arrived at the bridge.</p><p>They were both combat veterans anyway; they might startle.</p><p>Andromeda had a tense expression. “We have received word from Cuxhaven. We cannot land. The Dark Lord has too much influence in the German Ministry, they’re quietly moving to screen arrivals.”</p><p>“What about France?” Tonks asked immediately, going white with a clammy, chill certainty down into her bones, as the ship sailed on through the night.</p><p>“They’re still highly opposed to the Dark Lord,” Andromeda agreed. “Perhaps we will be safe in France. Beauxbatons has always been a better school when it comes to opposing the darkness than Durmstrang, and most of the German students go to Durmstrang, outside of the Rhineland.”</p><p>Tonks nodded to her mother. She knew of the complicated catchment areas of the four European schools—or maybe it was five, depending on who you asked. Koldovstoretz offered education to students from the former Soviet Union, and from Finland, Mongolia, and Greece and Cyprus. Beauxbatons taught students from France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and the Low Countries (and Austria, in parts, because Austrians were sometimes terrible Germans), except in Frisia, where many of the families actually sent their children to Hogwarts, and of course, part of Germany, because some of the Rhineland had once been rather French.</p><p>Castelobruxo had been the Iberian school, in eastern Portugal, before it had fled the revolutionary wizards fighting with Napoleon’s armies (just as the Portuguese Court had fled to Brasil), and merged with an obscure order in the Brasilian Amazon to create the modern South American school; students from parts of Spain, and Portugal, still attended it. The problem was Durmstrang – Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, the former Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria (in the sort of parts that produced Hitler, Tonks supposed, because sometimes Austrians were worse than Germans, too), Czechoslovakia—they all attended Durmstrang, a school located in some obscure, concealed location on the Lithuanian coast. And Durmstrang was strong in the dark arts, and most of Voldemort’s non-British followers had come from it.</p><p>Now, Voldemort was already using his contacts at Durmstrang to close the net around them. They had not even reached shore, and while they had not been blasted out of the seas by a salvo of missiles from a muggle warship—that would probably be the easiest way to do it, none of the wizards aboard were ready for a fight—of course Voldemort would prefer to detain them, discredit them, try to turn the ones he could, and torture the rest to death.</p><p>If they resisted, the muggle warship might be arranged, though Dora thought now, abruptly, that they should organise a watch against it; at night, hiding the wizards by keeping them belowdecks surely mattered less. “We should get a watch on deck, then. And we need to make – not for France, wouldn’t Holland be sufficient?”</p><p>“There are some families in Frisia that follow the Dark Lord,” her mother answered. “So I wouldn’t trust making for Eemshaven. Craig already suggested it.”</p><p>He nodded wearily and went for his cup of tea again. “Spell me at the wheel, Tonks? That Luna girl kept her on course for a solid thirty minutes, I’m sure you can do the same.”</p><p>“...Luna is <em>weird,” </em>the pink-haired metamorphmagus answered with a shake of her head. “And yes, I’m saying that. Sure thing Uncle Craig.” It felt weird to say at this point, as her mind snapped into focus from the caffeine she had, herself. She stepped up to the wheel, taking a deep sigh. “You know, I wanted to be like you when I was young. A soldier. Then, being a witch, following One-Eyed Moody’s example was good enough—but the last Aurors left will have to be soldiers if we’re going to change this.”</p><p>Craig Tonks stepped away from the wheel, and paused, and looked back to her. “You’re already a soldier. You might have a different name in your wizarding world, but you’ve been fighting a war, and lost just as much as I have. Don’t bother yourself with it. You’re here, you’ve done it, and now we’re all on the boat together.”</p><p>Dora couldn’t help but laugh. It was true. They were all literally on the same boat together. “So what course are we going to steer? Because if Eemshaven won’t work, I’ve got an idea. In fact, it was a book from your shelf growing up, the Riddle of the … Sands?”</p><p>“<em>The Riddle of the Sands,</em>” Craig’s eyes glinted with a reminiscence of the novel, and the complicated man who had written it, both hero and traitor. “I remember it. You could hide an entire fleet in the sand-banks off the coast in these reaches. Cut into the Waddenzee and back southwest for Den Helder in Dutch territorial waters?”</p><p>“Sure thing,” Tonks agreed, and looked to her mother. “Den Helder is in Holland, the wizarding families there will be old Beauxbatons stock. So we can take a chance that they won’t stop us before we reach Den Helder… And then we should be safe from His agents, at least for now.”</p><p>“...Well, I can see that working,” Andy nodded slowly. “I’m confident the Burgundian Circle won’t be suborned. It’s just a small minority of His supporters there, even among the pureblood families. What’s the downside?”</p><p>“We run aground in the Waddenzee while a hundred miles off our officially registered course, and get into the papers,” Craig said bluntly. “The depth-sounder will work for some of it, but it’s still a risk. Especially with the way your magic interferes with the electronics.”</p><p>“I think we can mark the depth for the helmsman,” Andy answered. “That… Seems like something a Witch could contrive. I’m going to talk with Professor Flitwick about it, and Professor Hooch as well. We will, because we must.”</p><p>“Well, I’m going to hit the loo and grab some of the fish. CALL ME if you have any problems, Tonks. But it seems settled. Steer One-One-Zero.”</p><p>Tonks tipped a salute from where she gripped the wheel. “Will-do. Helm One-One-Zero Aye.” She swung the trawler out to starboard and watched the compass tick over, as Craig went below and Andromeda cast a last glance at her daughter, alone with her hands on the wheel.</p><p>Her father had loved the Billy Joel song <em> Downeaster Alexa. </em>Andromeda knew that. Tonks sure as hell knew that about her dad, couldn’t forget it now, would never forget it now. Gripped the wheel a little tighter, and remembered her dad and the simple magic of a record player, from an age when everything, muggle and wizarding world, had been magical to her. Now the dad who had encouraged her to explore was gone, but his memory was not, it was inside of her, and all she had to do, was never let it go.</p><p>“Da… I still have my hands on the wheel,” Tonks whispered softly to the wind, and watched her mother go. Then she stiffened her muscles and steadied herself out, looking ahead into the darkness, the green and red lights rigged, the light chop of the North Sea, mercifully in summer. A good Captain couldn’t take his hands off the wheel. A good Captain couldn’t fall asleep.</p><p>Belowdecks was her son, little Teddy Lupin, barely more than an infant.</p><p>She wouldn’t take her hands off the wheel.</p><p>She wouldn’t fall asleep.</p><p>Never again.</p><p>Not for as long as the war lasted.</p><p>Whatever it required.</p><p>Never again.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>1. Castelobruxo is a distinctly Portuguese name for what should be an indigenous South American school from its description. It appears to also have many Portuguese headmasters/headmistresses, so I created a history in which it fled from Napoleon (and his associated French revolutionary wizards) alongside the Portuguese court, and melded with local traditions in the interior, where the Portuguese court went on to found the short-lived but certainly glorious Empire of Brasil, which unfortunately ended when the liberals decided to ally with the slavers to overthrow the monarchy; it took fiction until Season 8 of Game of Thrones to create as pathetically mendacious of a political alliance as real life did in 1889. Yes, I know some of my Brasilian fans will disagree with me. :-) -- but I'm a Tsarist, what can I say? </p><p>2. SMS Blucher went down in heavy combat with the Royal Navy's Battlecruiser force at the Battle of Doggerbank, 24 January, 1915. </p><p>3. "The Riddle of the Sands", an invasion novel telling sailing stories in the sands off the European coast in the North Sea wrapped around a story of a German invasion armada secretly massing there, was authored by the enigmatic Erskine Childers, A hero of the Boer War and loyal soldier of the First World War, his complicated political sympathies led him to ultimately support the Irish nationalists, only after authoring this novel, which did much to promote increased naval spending in Britain. Joining the Irish Republicans, he ultimately turned against Britain, fought for Ireland, and then supported the anti-Treaty faction in the Irish Civil War, and was duly executed for possessing a firearm against the military law of the Irish Free State. His son went on become the President of Ireland.</p><p>4. I really need to spend even more time covering the Wizarding Schools, but it’s boring exposition. Brittany, being reverse-settled from Britain, and an independent Duchy in Law until the 16th century more or less, certainly sends its wizarding children to Hogwarts. Some old Norman and Aquitainian families certainly do the same. Frisia’s cultural connections to Britain are older still, dating to the Saxon invasions. Conversely, some English wizarding families likely send their children to Beauxbatons. </p><p>Oddities like Albania are hard to quantify in whether or not they would follow eastern or western custom. I suspect some areas like the Caribbean may still send their wizarding youth to the schools of the former (or in a few cases like Bermuda, current) colonial power. Hogwarts however certainly has the smallest catchment area of any Wizarding school, ironically, unless Australia and New Zealand send their students to the mother country. Canada almost certainly uses Ilvermorny.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Kingdom for a Horse</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Kingdom for a Horse</p><p> </p><p>Bellatrix had always felt she had some unrealised talent for artistic performance. In the 1960s she had figured out how to make her family’s wizarding radio pick up muggle stations. The consequences that had for her life had changed her irrevocably, and led to her being the Dark Lord’s Lieutenant. Of the muggle world, Bellatrix still had one guilty pleasure—music. Nothing about Azkaban had driven her quite so mad as the fact that she was sitting in the middle of the North Sea, without the ability to pick up a single Pirate Radio station. Before she had been admitted as a Death Eater and married to Rod, she had been creating her own complement to Wizarding Radio—a magical discjockey performance that would have been absolutely unfathomable, to remake and recreate music as it played, with magic—lights, sounds, scents, percussion, intensity, even emotions themselves travelling directly into someone else’s mind; her’s was not the skill of a musician, but something else entirely. A modern pop symphony of pure magical intensity, filling the senses completely. Bellatrix had appreciated how magic could seize electricity, unpredictably, and use it; she had set about making it systematic for the sake of the beauty it offered—a magical sound engineer. She had nearly achieved it, when the Ministry intervened, when scandal intervened.</p><p>She could no longer experience emotions like that. They had left her forever in Azkaban. The passionate intensity which had filled her when she was young was a dead thing, in which her only intense emotions were shrill. Well, there was one thing left; as she entered the Tower, the fingers of her right hand were snapping out a beat. As they did, magical sparks fluttered from her fingers and sparked and arced through the air in reds and greens and yellows. Her stride was confident and savage, and her guards at her flanks had their wands ready, though they didn’t really need them.</p><p>It was really all about cutting a certain kind of image. And she completed the image by going for her wand and using her magic to open the door to the cell, which a few days before had been just for tourist purposes, the Tower not having been used to keep prisoners since the 1950s, and nobody had been executed or a <em>serious </em>prisoner since the Second World War. Doubtless, the castle’s old bones were happy to have the infamy of a royal prisoner.</p><p>He looked back at her from inside of the cell with a dim expression as he tried to place her, then tried to place just how serious she was. That she was magical, she was sure there was no doubt, for she was still keeping the beat, still sparking wild little pixies and motes of magic from her fingers. Once she was on the verge of a whole new class of magic, but now this was the last remnant.</p><p>“Your Highness,” she made a mocking little bow. “Did you enjoy the beat?” She stopped snapping her fingers.</p><p>“I… Absolutely not.”</p><p>“Boney M’s <em>Rasputin.” </em>Bellatrix started cackling. “I thought it was suitable for the occasion.”</p><p>“Am I to be hung, then?” He seemed to try and muster himself. "Or just shot?"</p><p>“Oh, nothing of the sort, Your Highness! Instead, I am going to introduce you to the world of magic. You’ve seen some flashy magic so far. It’s what we used to take you out of the MOD. However,” her voice dropped, her eyes gleamed, she couldn’t resist this. “We’ve got different kinds of magic entirely. Magic for everything under the sun. Magic for some things that are not under the sun. Magic for things muggles can’t dream of, Prince Muggle.” She twirled her wand lightly. “So, there’s a certain kind of magic I am extremely, extremely good at, because I am a private person, and I keep my thoughts to myself. I’m an Occlumens. And if you remember just a little bit of your schoolboy latin…”</p><p>“Oh get on with it, woman,” he snarled contemptuously under his breath.</p><p>“Careful, my family has been Noble in England for as long as your’s was,” Bellatrix answered, the fun dropping out of her voice, the bemusement, replaced with a cold, ominous fury. “Our name was first recorded in the sixth century and we have held land as Witches and Lords both since and have always been pure. My blood is no stranger to the idea of holding a Prince at the point of my wand for the sake of our rights and privileges. You will call me Lady Black.”</p><p>He just laughed, having mustered something of the courage of his ancestors.</p><p>“Have it your way.” She went absolutely cold. “You see, I was going to explain to you that to be an Occlumens, one who hides the knowledge and secrets of the mind, you must learn how to attack so that you may understand what you are defending against. In this case, by attack, I mean read the minds of others. Against their will.”</p><p>Then her grin came back, she couldn’t resist it, for she saw a stab of real fear through the man’s face, true fear that stripped away his pretensions. “Oooh. This is going to be good.”</p><p>Giggling, she raised her wand. “<em>Legilimens!</em>”</p><p>She tore deep through a mind of privilege, a mind raised in duty. Many of the members of his family had come to that duty with great courage, honour, and dignity. Some had made mistakes. Some had unpleasant secrets.</p><p>Few had a secret as unpleasant as his.</p><p>Bellatrix began to laugh, her laughter turned into a cackle. Finally it was uproarious, uncontrollable. She had wanted something to hold over this man’s head, and had expected some material to work with, on principles of shame and blackmail. She hadn’t expected a veritable sword of Damocles to be able to wield at her pleasure.</p><p>There was a harsh tinge in her eyes, too. Whatever sympathy she had for this Princely muggle had evaporated in a single moment. Even Bellatrix Lestrange had lines, and he had crossed the one of her’s which mattered the most. She thought muggle women little more than dogs, but even Bellatrix Lestrange would not wantonly torture animals. This… Made her angry.</p><p>When she let him go, he was trembling and vomiting on the floor from the violation, the intensity with which the last probes had been conducted, and the knowledge of what she knew. What she knew, what he knew. The moment he had realised he was in trouble—the moment she had realised what she was dealing with… None too gentle, after that.</p><p>Bellatrix shook her head slowly. “Your brother escaped with his sons, with the help of many brave men, and I imagine they will find ways to trouble us inordinately. It was a very brave thing—heedless of the cost. Your mother and father died well, denied us the chance to capture them. They died like the Royalty they were. And you? I suppose fate gave you to me, for now you will have to live with your sin. You will be <em>useful </em>to us, Your Highness.” Her voice cut, cold and chilling. “You will be <em>useful </em>to us!”</p><p>“Why do you tell me about my family?” He asked, wiping away the vomit, pushing himself up, at least to his knees.</p><p>Bellatrix laughed. “Because it means we need a King. You will get your brother’s Crown, for a while. We have told the people that there was to be a referendum on the monarchy, and that he attempted a coup d’etat against the elected government to prevent it, as he expected to lose, thanks to the scandal over his pathetic late wife. Not like you’ve had any better luck with women, because…”</p><p>“Don’t say it!”</p><p>“Then you will serve us,” she laughed, and contempt laced in her voice. “You will step forward, and make the necessary speeches, and say you will be crowned King, and serve in the position, and supervise and call for the referendum, and abide by the results. You will get your brother’s throne, for a year or so. And then the Dark Lord will settle on your reward, when it is <em>he </em>who rules this land. Don’t want to cooperate? Then we’ll just air the dirty laundry.”</p><p>“What about my daughters!?”</p><p>“What about them indeed? Cooperate, and you won’t have to ask that question. Pathetic, pathetic Prince. What about them indeed? Isn’t this what your muggle feminists say, that all women are somebody’s daughter? Aren’t <em>all </em>women? You have one day, <em>Your Highness.</em> Make up your mind. This isn’t about a dignified death, not for you, oh no; first it would be agony and shame.” She turned away, and with a flick of her wand, slammed the door to the cell behind her.</p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Voldemort was very entertained by the information that Bellatrix supplied when she returned to the Ministry Headquarters. Indeed, Bella’s sly and subtle plan to handle the control of information from their seizure of power had met with a kind of praise that she had not received since the Sword of Gryffindor had been stolen from her vault; now she was back in the Dark Lord’s good graces. Standing at his right hand, Bellatrix saw the audiences with the other Death Eaters; she was clearly Voldemort’s Lieutenant, clearly his right hand, and, as the knowledge spread, the whispered mother of his child.</p><p>Then Dolohov arrived, bowing politely before the low throne on which Voldemort sat. It was only temporary, after all. “M’lord, we have made arrangements to seize the ship of the escaped members of Dumbledore’s Army and the Order of the Phoenix. However, some foolish wizard on their side warned them; the ship diverted from Cuxhaven, and we think is heading south, toward the Burgundian Circle. I have made arrangements to make an attempt on them, but against that number of battle-hardened wizards, even if most are children, it will be in doubt.” He explained the situation, and warned Voldemort that he could not over-promise the situation.</p><p>It brought a frown from the Dark Lord, of course. “You mean they might escape?”</p><p>“Yes, M’lord. The decisive factor will be whether or not the Burgundian Circle’s Aurors intervene.” The Burgundian Circle of course was the unified magical leadership of the Netherlands and Belgium.</p><p>Bellatrix was thinking of something else, though. During the final phase of the hard fight at Hogwarts—they had in fact nearly lost, and only the confidence that the Dark Lord had, with Harry dead and Nagini hanging back, had let them push hard enough to squeeze out a bloody victory—the mudblood had fought her. Hard. The girl was a ferociously skilled witch, and Bellatrix had respected the way she had fought, with the iron courage of an old veteran, even after her friend had been slain. She had, after all, tortured Hermione to break her.</p><p>In the background, the conversation between Voldemort and Dolohov continued. “You understand that every effort must be made, but it cannot jeopardise our holding power in Britain until the time is right to break the international statute of secrecy, yes?”</p><p>“I understand, My Lord, but that increases the risk we will fail in stopping them,” Dolohov replied with a careful bow.</p><p>“Very well. The plan is greater than some whelps and mudbloods.”</p><p><em> Whelps and Mudbloods. </em>Hermione had refused to be broken, even with confronted with the woman who tortured her. A slight chill feeling crept into Bellatrix’s heart. She knew that if the girl was captured, she would be held, and tortured, until Voldemort was in power generally and they had no need to hide anything at all. Then she would be ceremonially denied the privileges of a witch, on account of her muggleborn status, and executed as a muggle traitor would be, to the Dark Lord—by hanging, drawing, and quartering. No more savage fate was traditional in England.</p><p>She had thrown all the humiliation and pain she could at the whelp, and the mudblood had stood up to it. Bellatrix, for all her contempt, felt like the woman should die well, or at least mercifully and quick, like a dog put out of its misery.</p><p>Dolohov was granted permission to depart.</p><p>Bellatrix looked up from Voldemort’s side. “My Lord, by your leave?”</p><p>“Granted, Bellatrix.”</p><p>She stepped away from Voldemort, turning at the entrance to the hall to bow before swinging around, to follow Dolohov out, who saw her walking to catch up, and paused. “Bellatrix, you want to talk, I take it?”</p><p>“Yes, Antonin. About this little operation that you are in charge of.”</p><p>“It’s much more modest than what you’re getting to do, forcing the muggle government to dance to your whim,” he answered with a bit of bemusement, and a mosaic of envy and contempt. Who wanted to spend time with muggles, after all? But it was also a powerful and trusted position, and all the other Death Eaters knew it.</p><p>“It is still important to keep Our Lord’s enemies from raising resistance to us in Europe. We need the wizarding world united around us to succeed,” Bellatrix laughed. “Or at least, to succeed without piling bodies. However, about killing, I do have one important request.”</p><p>Antonin Dolohov frowned. Bellatrix rarely spent her capital in Death Eater circles with a request. “Have out with it, Bellatrix.”</p><p>“I want you to make sure with your people take care to kill Hermione Granger, Potter’s mudblood friend.”</p><p>“To <em>kill </em>her? I thought Our Lord would want Potter’s friends alive?”</p><p>“He doesn’t really care about them. He cared only about Potter himself,” Bellatrix answered swiftly.</p><p>“Then why do you give a damn for the mudblood one way or another?” Dolohov twisted his face in bemusement.</p><p>“I tried to break her, and she didn’t break. So give her my regards, and put her down, decently. Muddies don’t deserve magic, never have and never will, but there is still magic in them. Do it for the magic, not for the whelp.”</p><p>“That is a remarkably enlightened position, Bellatrix. Has motherhood softened you?”</p><p>“Oh lay off, Antonin. Allow me a grand gesture from time to time.”</p><p>“As you will. I trust a book of arcana will be forthcoming?”</p><p>“A fair price. Good hunting.” She waved cheerily as he turned away. It didn’t feel like a good deed and it didn’t feel like she had softened and she didn’t really care about the mudblood. But there was a part of her that just sat uneasily with the idea that the human filth in Whitehall would get to spend the next year, when they should be their slaves or worse, continuing to live it up, while the brave mudblood girl spent it being tortured, waiting for her execution. There should be some <em>hierarchy </em>in the world, and mudbloods were still higher than muggles. Fat chance the girl would appreciate it, of course, but a Black did not care what the sheep thought of her.</p><p>Then she spied her husband down the hall, and groaned, a flash of anger cutting through the dim grey haze of Azkaban, and livening her emotions, both frustrated and excited by the chance for a marital spat all at once, she quickly forgot the mudblood, and carried on her day. "Hey, <em> Rod!</em>"</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The French Connection</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>The French Connection</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>They motored through the Waddenzee toward the channel leading back out into the North Sea, further south. Of course, that was not their destination, but instead, the city of Den Helder in northern Holland. The nets had, as usual, brought up some shards of bone and rock, as they were wont to do over the Doggerbank.</p><p>At first, Hermione was thankful for the fish most of all. They had been fried up, with some flour and oil left from cooking the one big meal for them all. With only two meals over two days, she was thankful for the food, even as she eased herself to sit against the side of the hold after accepting it. Ron was slumped there, close to her, with a still distant expression. But like all of them, he was too starved to refuse food, whatever he felt like.</p><p>Fried fish, battered with flour, was hard to make bad, and Molly, Narcissa and Andromeda had at least managed to collaborate on cooking. She appreciated every moment of eating it as she tucked in. Ron looked to her as he forced himself through his food.</p><p>“How can you look so happy eating, ‘Mione?”</p><p>“Come on, Ron, don’t you have a crack for this moment?”</p><p>“Harry’s dead,” he answered sullenly, but eating just enough to sate his hunger, tried to be a gentleman and push some of his food over to Hermione.</p><p>She just rolled her eyes. “You need it more than I do, Ron. And yeah, he’s dead. But we’re going to eat, stay alive, and rally the world. We’ll find <em>some </em>way to defeat that monster. I don’t know how yet, but we will. And we’ll turn as much of the wizarding world against him as we can, while we still have the chance.”</p><p>Hermione shifted to favour the wound in her side that was still healing, the magical corruption of her body which had resisted medicine and magic for months, and was only slowly coming around to heal. Ron’s thousand-yard stare, the way the experience had chilled him, it was also chilling to her.</p><p>The young witch closed her eyes, but she received no comfort there, either. She could see Bellatrix, duelling like a woman possessed, standing on Voldemort’s right with Nagini curled at hissing around her, together forming the vanguard before the approach of the Dark Lord. It was a formidable combination, he was protected by both magic and the massive snake; his foremost Lieutenant at the front. Molly Weasley had nearly gotten to her anyway, but Nagini had put an end to that, and the house witch of the Weasley family had barely escaped with her life.</p><p>She remembered when they crossed over the scene of earlier fighting, during the desperate retreat, and she saw Neville Longbottom’s body, where he had proved himself a true Gryffindor, and threw himself into a fight against Bellatrix which had saved Nymphadora Tonks her life and cost Neville his during the first phase of the battle. Bellatrix had destroyed the whole Longbottom family now, and that rang in her soul like the bells marking a death.</p><p>Bellatrix.</p><p>She saw Bellatrix for other reasons which were not related to the battle at Hogwarts, not related to the last view of her, going right, a smirk on her lips, as McGonagall smiled with all the pride of a Scotswoman who knew she wasn’t coming home, but would die protecting the children—she was not at all afraid, as she faced down Voldemort with a strength and intensity to rival Dumbledore. The train was backing into Hogsmeade, its whistle screaming over and over, summoning everyone who could flee to jam themselves aboard, while part of the crew and the station-master stood on the roofs of the carriages, slinging spells at the outriding Death Eaters who were coming ahead and trying to flank them, now that they had realised someone had gotten steam up on the Hogwarts Express and backed it out of the station—that they might have a chance to escape—that last vision, of the two witches, one light, one dark, duelling before the station, while Voldemort closed in for the kill on a woman who deserved a much happier and much longer tenure as Headmistress, but would go down a legend for what she did manage to do.</p><p>She saw Bellatrix at the Malfoy Manor. She saw her with her dagger, looming over her. She saw her with her dagger, her body, her thighs pressing down into her. And when Hermione slept, she dreamed dreams of Bellatrix doing altogether more to her than that. Dreams with other girls, she had had a few times before, and read a book on human sexuality which assured her nothing was abnormal about it; a lot of girls had ideation about the same sex, and she would grow out of it, and love Ron, and they’d be happy together and have a family.</p><p>The dreams about Bellatrix, though, those dreams lingered, they wouldn’t leave. By the time of the Battle of Hogwarts she had hoped for the witch’s death, that it might put an end to the dreams. She had spent some time researching to see if it might be a curse, a side effect of what had been carved into her arm. But she couldn’t imagine the pureblood being anything other than revolted by it. She insisted <em>she </em>was revolted by the dreams, too, but they still happened—they still happened.</p><p>Now the thought consumed her, and she forced her eyes open—and then leaned over to kiss Ron on the cheek. “Get better. He’d want us to live our lives,” Hermione insisted. “We’ve got to live them for him. That’s all we can give him, now.”</p><p>Ron didn’t respond to the kiss with emotional intensity, so Hermione kissed him on the cheek again. “Come on, okay?”</p><p>Still no response. He looked at her with a rather dark expression, though, which seemed to mingle lust with dispassion—the combination made Hermione feel like a hunk of meat being inspected for sex, and she shivered. “Sorry,” she offered lamely to her shell-shocked and strangely intense boyfriend, and got up and moved to Luna Lovegood’s side.</p><p>Luna was arranging her collection of artefacts. “Did you know we were passing over land earlier?”</p><p>“Luna… How does a boat pass over land?”</p><p>“Oh, well, it all sank. See, here’s some spearpoints, and I think this was a ceremonial object—it feels like remnant magical power remains, perhaps a sun pendant…”</p><p>Hermione looked at them, and sure enough, they were all wrought by human hands, all in stone of course. She had been about to tell Luna to knock it off, the girl’s absent-minded focus on the absurd sometimes irritated her… But after Hogwarts it was harder, when Luna was always so kind and compassionate to her. And, the artefacts were real, so… “Sunken land?”</p><p>“Yes, the Doggerbank. It was part of our lands once. And there were wizards and witches there, of course.”</p><p>“Of course. Well, I’m glad you found some artefacts in the nets,” <em>leave it to Luna to be obsessed with some maritime archaeology finds as we’re fleeing Voldemort. </em></p><p>“I’ll keep them. They just seem important,” Luna continued with a shrug, and looked up from them to stare sharply at Hermione. “Are you feeling better?”</p><p>“Somewhat, but it scarcely matters—I feel like I have to keep moving, lest I die,” Hermione confessed.</p><p>“I miss Harry, but he is The Boy Who Lived,” Luna replied, bouncing one of the artefacts in her hand.</p><p>“Was,” Hermione corrected mournful.</p><p>“Time is a lot of rot. Is. He’s alive to me.”</p><p>Hermione sighed and got up. She didn’t want to deal with Luna like this right now, philosophical, meandering Luna. She got up, though, just to have Luna bore in with one of those creepy comments that were always right.</p><p>“Your heart is clouded, Hermione. If you can find peace in it, then you can think positively about these things, and we’ll all be able to stop Voldemort yet.”</p><p>Thinking of the fantasies of Bellatrix duelling with her love for Ron in her heart, Hermione broke down and started to cry, the exhaustion catching up with her at last.</p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p> </p><p>Andromeda stood tensely with Narcissa on the bridge, close to her brother-in-law, as he was speaking through the radio to the Dutch authorities in Den Helder for docking permission.</p><p>“They’re going to have muggle police there to interview us. National police,” Craig murmured. “The Dutch government wants to find out what’s happening in Britain.”</p><p>“Well, we’re not going to <em>let </em>them, are we? We’d have to nothing to tell them, we’d have to Obliviate them,” Narcissa said with a roll of her eyes.</p><p>“Yes, we would,” Andy agreed after a moment. “We have to get the attention of the Burgundian Circle <em>somehow. </em>The sooner, the better. But I’d rather not do it by showing up as refugees and Obliviating a group of local police. I doubt they would be pleased at all, and the last thing we need is criminal proceedings brought against us by the Burgundian Circle.”</p><p>“Really?” Narcissa rolled her eyes. “To put it mildly.”</p><p>“Narcissa, I am just thinking through it. I know this is outside of your comfort zone… But, Craig, do you think we can improvise something, to make them disinterested in the others?”</p><p>“We could <em>try </em>to convince them, since there won’t be any information being passed between the governments, that we’re evacuating the families of MOD employees working against the putschist forces,” he answered after a moment. “From what I’ve seen of you two ladies and Dora, you could easily deal with the situation if the story didn’t work,” he added.</p><p>“Well, at least he’s observant,” Narcissa muttered. “Alright. I will let you try your best.”</p><p>“You don’t …” Andy decided not to argue with her sister, especially when she felt like a glimmer of a relationship re-forming between them. “Thank you, Narcissa. Be ready if anything goes wrong. I trust you with this, implicitly. We’ll get our children out of this, and all the others too.”</p><p>“Agreed,” Narcissa replied with a nod. Two pairs of eyes met, and two Black Sisters agreed on something fundamental to their respective personalities, which nothing could ever change. They would both fight for their children, and for the moment their children were on the same path, had the same needs for survival. That meant that they were lock-step. The fighting vanished between the sisters.</p><p>Craig tuned to another channel. He glanced to the two witches a minute later. “It appears His Highness is in communication with the Commonwealth from the submarine he’s aboard. There’s to be a joint statement with the Commonwealth Ministers in three hours.”</p><p>“An opening?” Andy asked, as Narcissa paced thoughtfully.</p><p>“It might make more people believe what we say. Perhaps they will present a united front to the Americans and the EU that the current government in the UK is unlawful,” he said, clearly hopeful. Craig, of course, was fighting for Andy and Dora and Teddy… But also for his King and Country. What he darkly suspected was his King and Country, now.</p><p>“Then we’ll do our best to make it work,” Narcissa acknowledged, at last fully behind the plan, and Andy went down to brief the other surviving adults.</p><p>She briefed Hooch and Flitwick and Molly Weasley, and then watched as they came alongside, her daughter helping with the lines as several port personnel on the dock did most of the work. Against the obvious risk of arrest in the Burgundian Circle, Narcissa and Dora and herself had freed the crew of the Imperious curse the better part of an hour again, but that meant they were all locked into their cabins to avoid problems at the moment—another almost insurmountable challenge when it came to avoid issues with the muggle police.</p><p>A brace of Dutch police cars were surrounding a single incident response van and six police motorcycles were on their kickstands to the side, with a group of officers supervising at the end of the quay. As was not uncommon with continental federal police, but becoming rarer, they were all armed with submachineguns. Andy grimaced. She could see now from the abbreviations on the cars that they were indeed <em>Koninklijke Marechaussee, </em>the Dutch Gendarmes, based on what Craig had told her. The government of the Netherlands was taking this very seriously.</p><p>With her hands open at her sides, Andy stepped up onto the quay, and began to walk forward steadily, down toward the end. One of the KMar men came up to her. “Would you please identify yourself, ma’am?”</p><p>He was at least unfailingly polite.</p><p>“Andromeda Tonks,” she answered, honestly, and presented her regular British passport for inspection. Getting through customs should require a minimum of effort, a maximum of honesty, then they would switch to the fakes to disappear again in Europe—that was the plan after the original rendezvous at Cuxhaven and the fakes they had for that had been rendered useless by the moves of Voldemort’s allies, at least.</p><p>“Madame Tonks, the British authorities have levelled serious accusations against those travelling aboard this ship. We will need to temporarily detain everyone for questioning. I would ask you be reasonable and make arrangements to have everyone disembark. I will delay putting you into custody so you can assist in this, if you are willing.”</p><p>“Sir, you’re going to find that there’s more than one hundred child refugees on this ship, as well as a few of their adult protectors. All related to MOD personnel trying to fight back against what is, in fact, a coup d’état against the British Government. We had every reason to expect they would be used as hostages and leverage. Surely your government is not prejudging the matter when the Commonwealth Ministers are going to make a joint statement with Prince Charles in another three hours?”</p><p>“Ma’am, you must be interviewed regardless of the political developments. I am afraid we cannot take your word. Now please return to your vessel, and instruct all aboard to come out, unarmed, with their hands visible. More police vans are arriving, and if your story is confirmed, you can expect to be released and granted asylum in a few days at most. I am sorry, but this is--”</p><p>The man’s words died with his life, as a green flash in the sky made Andromeda snap away by instinct, bringing up a shield herself, to defend against another curse that followed the Killing Curse which had killed the Marschal, but not its intended target—her.</p><p>They were under attack, four Death Eaters leading a group of dark robed wizards, at least. They were tearing through the KMars, and abrupt sharp bursts of gunfire tore across the quay. Four wizards converged on Andy, and she was rusty, she knew it. She had not actively fought in the second wizarding war.</p><p>But she was Bellatrix <em> Black</em>’s Kid Sister, <em> thank you very much, </em>and even if she was rusty, these weren’t exactly the best Death Eaters, either. The elder sister who had hated her for running off with Ted, who had humiliated her, who had burned her face from the family tapestry, all despite the unstinting support Andromeda had showed to Bella during her own family scandal—she had at least made sure that her Andy was a fine student in DADA.</p><p>Andy had chosen, for many reasons, not to fight actively, but to support the Order of Phoenix behind the scenes, with logistics, connections, planning. Still, she could.</p><p>And she did. Her wand whipped out, and a furious fusillade of slung spells abruptly flung four wizards back on the defensive, who had expected a desperate shielding effort, instead of an attack worthy of Voldemort’s Right Hand. Motivated by the need to defend her daughter and grandson, Andromeda Tonks matched herself against four dark wizards without hesitation—and drove them back.</p><p>It would not last for long, but it wouldn’t have to. Hooch and Flitwick were coming, as fast as they could, though they would be beaten by Nymphadora, moving at a dead run to support her mother, flicking her wand from the hip at range to try and provide some cover. Andy certainly needed it; her odds went from 4:1 to 8:1 in the space of a moment as more of Voldemort’s followers turned from attacking the KMar men to attacking <em> her. </em></p><p>And then they got no more reinforcements, for they had a fight on their hands down at the end of the dock. They were no longer killing the KMar men like they were targets of a Muggle Baiting Hunt from the dark old days when the Gaunts, before the Statute, simply did whatever they wanted to muggle peasants without a care in the world, while worshipping Gods older than those of Christendom.</p><p>Now, the surviving Marschals were holding their ground, taking cover, coordinating with hand signals, moving out, their guns chattering with growing confidence. As Nymphadora reached her side and helped her manage the wizards she was fighting, Andromeda spared a brief glance, and was shocked to see that Narcissa was standing over them, providing them cover with deft shield after shield. By defending the muggle Marschals with her magic, she was allowing them to lay down effective suppressive fire, keeping the remaining wizards of Voldemort’s on the defensive, using shields to protect themselves from automatic weapons fire, instead of joining the attack.</p><p>Somehow, the baby sister of the three had improvised a way to leverage her own effectiveness in the fight to be greater than if she were just slinging spells, quickly and practically, and without letting her bigotry get in the way.</p><p>With a little grin of pride and happiness and hope, Andy went over onto the offensive once again.</p><p>As the prospects of a quick victory began to fade, young wizards and witches from Hogwarts—now veteran soldiers of the last stand of Dumbledore’s Army—were crowding the quay, turning their wands on their force. Voldemort had sent enough of his strength to deal with them, to extirpate them all, or capture them, to wipe out this band of refugees utterly.</p><p>But their plans had been disrupted now, as more and more muggles arrived—and Andy covered her daughter in making the dash to Narcissa’s position to reinforce her—that there was a general battle waging through the streets of Den Helder, an astonishing violation of the Statute of Secrecy in every way imaginable.</p><p>Fortunately, it also drew attention. Another few minutes, and a mass of Burgundian Aurors began to arrive, hitting the Morsmordre wizards in the flank. The attack collapsed within another few minutes, and they began to flee <em> enmasse, </em>leaving the Burgundian Aurors to perform clean-up, a task which would probably ultimately involve unspeakables to Obliviate half the population of Den Helder and blame it on a terrorist attack.</p><p>With a feeling of relief, trembling, knowing she hadn’t duelled like that in earnest in two decades, Andy made her way up to her daughter and sister, standing rather tensely together near a Dutch Auror, whose appearance marked her as a descendant of both the Low Countries and the lands once ruled by the Netherlands in the East. The woman made a polite bow. “Madame Tonks. Some of our German friends managed to reach out to us, despite the situation in the German Ministry. I want to assure you that we will allow your entire party to travel on to France, where the French Ministry will give you asylum.”</p><p>“Thank you… We will try to be quick.”</p><p>“A special train is laid on at Den Helder station, which will run straight through to France, and we will convey you all there before the Obliviating work is done,” the woman answered, and turned away to give instructions to some of her subordinates for a moment.</p><p>Andy looked to Narcissa. “France, then?”</p><p>“It is what we wanted,” Narcissa replied. “I have a house, of course. That will be adequate.” She turned to look for Draco, disembarking the trawler.</p><p>“What about us, Cissy?”</p><p>Narcissa stared at her for a moment. “Andy, I… I love you. But I have to get Draco a wife, so the idea of our living in the same house with my half-blood…”</p><p>“Fine.” Andromeda cut her off with a snapped gesture across her own throat. “I don’t want to hear that rot again. May we at least visit?” She felt this strange sense of the future, as if she were sure it was going to get worse before it got better.</p><p>She could see from her sister’s eyes that Narcissa felt the same.</p><p>“...You may, quietly,” Narcissa allowed after a moment. “Things will never be the same.”</p><p><em> Then I hope that someday, somehow, they will be better, </em>Andy thought. But with Voldemort in power, she knew that was a tall order, a wild dream. In fact, at the time, she had no idea how bad they would get.</p><p>But as Tolkien put it--the sun also rises.</p><p>
  <em>Finis.</em>
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